


Near Miss

by 007Awesome



Category: Mystery Skulls Animated
Genre: Blood, Hellbent, Injury, Lewis owes Arthur a new vest among other things, These dorks still can’t communicate, no death (at least not yet)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-26
Updated: 2018-10-26
Packaged: 2019-08-08 00:46:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16419242
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/007Awesome/pseuds/007Awesome
Summary: In reality it was only a handful of seconds.For Arthur though it felt like slow motion. It was more like he was watching a movie from someone else’s point of view, he couldn’t grasp the realtiy of the situation.Then he hit the ground.





	Near Miss

In reality it was only a handful of seconds. 

For Arthur though it felt like slow motion. It was more like he was watching a movie from someone else's point of view, he couldn't grasp the reality of the situation.

Then he hit the ground.

Red hot pain exploded from his side before he hit the ground hard enough to rattle the teeth out of his head. He gasped, suddenly aware of nothing but the ache at his back and the heat at his side. His hands flew to the area but touching it was apparently a bad idea. He winced and groaned as that brought on a new wave of agony. 

His prosthetic was still jittering back and forth so it took him a few tries to actually prop himself up. The noise he made at the sight was a touch more hysterical than he intended. His shirt and vest had torn like paper from whatever he hit. Underneath all he could see was red oozing out everywhere and he swallowed, suddenly nauseous.

Craning his head around he could see the culprit was a shorter stalagmite. The tip gleamed with something wet. 

Arthur blew out a breath, looking back now at the rapidly pooling blood underneath him. That was... bad. Really bad. He had no idea how deep it was but he imagined it was a job simple bandages couldn't fix.

His thoughts were a jumbled mess as he let his head thump back onto the floor. Had to stop the bleeding. Haltingly he reached down with his good arm. This was going to hurt. Taking as deep of a breath as he could manage, he pressed down hard. 

Barely managing to choke down the pained cry that bubbled up, he shut his eyes and tried to count. His breathing was erratic and the panic was starting to seep back in. He was injured, bleeding, at the bottom of some cave, and Lewis-

Arthur's eyes snapped open. 

Lewis had chased him off the road, threw him in here, and dropped him off a cliff. Even before that with the mansion-

He wasn't even aware that he was shaking until he looked up, half expecting to see Lewis looming over the edge. The eerie pink glow was enough for him to see... nothing. Did- did Lewis leave him here? Did he think he was dead? 

And for the life of him, Arthur couldn't figure out why.

It was almost too much. The emotional whiplash of being finding his best friend, finding out his best friend was apparently dead, then his best friend almost murdering him- 

He let out a shaky breath. Noticing he let the pressure off the wound in his side, he pressed a bit harder. It hurt a little less than before.

Was that a bad thing?

The click clack of footsteps startled him, earning him another stab of pain. He squinted up from the floor, too tired and in pain to move, and it took a little too long to recognise who it was. 

Arthur's eyes widened as Lewis approached, trying to scramble away on reflex. The action pulled at his side and he whimpered, there was no getting away this time.

You wouldn't expect a skull to be able to emote much but here Lewis, looking just as angry as he did before. Arthur almost found himself wondering when he'd switched back from how he'd looked when he was alive. He didn't know which one he was more scared of right now.

"L-lewis?"

The ghost didn't pause except to cast a slow glance at the stalagmite Arthur had almost been skewered on. When he stopped he was looming over Arthur like a vengeful spectre. For a brief, terrifying moment, he thought that maybe Lewis had come to finish the job. 

So when the ghost crouched down next to him with an unreadable expression Arthur froze in abject terror. He flinched back, breath stuttering, as the other reached forward. Lewis sighed, it had a weird tone to it like a crackling fire, and grabbed Arthur's arm. 

"Lew wait-" 

"Shut up," the spirit growled, slipping the other man's shaking arm out of his vest. 

Shocked, Arthur watched in silence as Lewis tugged his vest off the rest of the way. It was more than a little disconcerting to see the huge blood stain on it as Lewis quickly balled it up in his hands. Arthur could only watch as the spirit took his hand off the wound and pressed the fabric into it. Arthur winced and grabbed at it, curling in on himself.

The heat coming off of Lewis's hand wasn't painful but it was certainly way too hot for a living person to be. He imagined if Leiws was alive he'd be running a pretty high fever right now.

Chancing a glance up, he saw Lewis focusing intently on his hands. A flash of pink out of the corner of his eye caught Arthur's attention. There behind another stalagmite was one of those tiny ghosts from before. He blinked and the little thing seems to noticed him staring, ducking behind the rocks with a shrill squeak. It was an odd sight to see after they'd done their best to terrify him before.

He turned his attention back to Lewis. 

"Why?" He fought back the urge to cough, blinking hard.

The ghost glanced his way before scowling back down at the wound. 

"You know why."

Apparently laughing wasn't the best response, as hoarse or pained as it was. He got cut off as the pressure increased slightly on his side. 

It took him a moment to recover, breathless and teeth clenched. "No, no I really don't big guy."

Lewis's eyes narrowed. "What?"

"I- I didn't even know you were dead."

Neither of them said anything for a few moments after that. It took Arthur a moment to connect the fact that he was feeling cold despite Lewis being right next to him with being a bad thing. Well, another bad thing in a week's worth of them anyways.

Arthur jerked, eyes flying back open. When did they close? Lewis had been tapping on his cheek, what he could only guess was a frown on his face. 

"You need a hospital," he finally said.

"Yeah?" He said in a 'no, duh' kind of tone. How exactly did Lewis think he was going to get there? 

The ghost rolled his eyes and suddenly Arthur wasn't on the ground anymore. After a few panicked breaths he realised that Lewis had just picked him up, the height difference wasn't even that much. Arthur looked back to find Lewis giving him an exasperated look.

Well that's how he was getting out of here then. 

"Are we gonna- uh,” the ‘talk about this’ was left unsaid.

"Later." Lewis wasn't meeting his eyes again.

Then Arthur had to make an effort not to lose his lunch as they floated up and out of the cave.

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this at one am so forgive me for any spelling errors. I have no idea if I’d want to continue this but the scene just kinda popped into my head and I needed to write it out (to cope with the looming hiatus in the distance).
> 
> Thanks for giving it a read!


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